tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53056315556164450802018-05-24T11:05:07.418+02:00love german booksBiased and unprofessional reports on German books, translation issues and life in Berlinkjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.comBlogger1374125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-888573846791432512018-04-25T07:24:00.000+02:002018-04-25T07:24:10.503+02:00What is a good translation?I'm still thinking about how we define "good" in terms of literary translation. For the Seagull Books newsletter, I asked a whole lot of other translators their opinions, and wrote about why it matters, whether we can demand that reviewers understand, and how taste plays a role. You can <a href="http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Seagull-Newsletter---April-2018.html?soid=1117322804977&amp;aid=fuEe9qSw1Sg">read it here</a>. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/69_EYoB1Iss" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com2http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2018/04/what-is-good-translation.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-903542134705909252018-03-18T19:18:00.000+01:002018-03-18T19:24:42.891+01:00On Appreciating TranslationsAs translators demand and gain increased recognition, our greater visibility has both pros and cons. It means that while some critics acknowledge our existence with a swift and not unwelcome "smoothly translated by" that might previously have been cut by an editor, others seek to engage with our work but in a negative way, pointing out its flaws. At which point other translators leap to our defence. This week, Emma Ramadan published <a href="http://quarterlyconversation.com/a-translators-diary-a-year-in-the-life-of-emma-ramadan">the first part of a year-long diary</a> at the <i>Quarterly Conversation</i>. Among other very interesting things, she addresses this issue, asking:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Why is it that anyone who dares write a negative review of a popular translation becomes a target? This is a problem. Or is it? Should we only positively review translations so that we lift the boat of translations in general? Should we all form a pact to refrain from reviewing translations we don’t like? Shouldn’t translations be able to stand up to the same criticism as books originally written in English? </blockquote>For a while, I tried to organize a workshop bringing together critics (paid and unpaid) and translators, with the aim of talking about what makes a good translation, what makes a good review, and what makes a good review of a translation. I'm too far away from the UK, though, so it came to nothing. Maybe I'll try again some time. But for now, I'll gather my thoughts about it here.<br /><br />I hope that translations are able to stand up to the same criticism as books originally written in English. Emma writes about abandoning a review because she disliked the book, and I know others who have done the same. In fact, back when I was reviewing books regularly here, unpaid, I usually chose not to bother finishing books I disliked – why prolong my misery and then write about it? (Part of this is probably because like many women, I want people to like me, I want to be <i>nice</i>.)<br /><br />What I would also like, though, is for critics to deal fairly with translations, not treat them like country cousins. That would mean taking them seriously and making an attempt to critique different aspects: plot, style, language and translation. At the moment, critiquing the translator's work often takes one of two approaches, as I mentioned above: the single-adverb compliment – robustly, smoothly, adeptly, elegantly, etc. – and the find-the-flaw game, in which the reviewer points out misunderstandings and poor word choices. In her fascinating book on translation, <a href="https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/this-little-art"><i>This Little Art</i></a>, Kate Briggs addresses this mistake-spotting with reference to two much-criticized (women) translators:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">It has to be possible, in other words, for someone, for the critic, for the philosopher, for the harder-working translator, to identify and correct the translator's mistakes. Doing so can be a means of alerting readers to the fact of translation (...) and of preparing the ground for retranslation. It has to be possible to continue this inexhaustible work together: to query and vary each other's decisions, holding to or elaborating alternative measures of precision and care, without quarrelling, necessarily, or policing. And without shaming? This, it seems, is less clear.</blockquote>My answer would be this: when we write about translations, we should bear in mind that they've been written by fallible human beings – as have all books. Translation is difficult. So is writing. It is hard to move a literary text between languages that don't overlap in terms of semantics, sounds, traditions. It is also hard to write descriptions of things that exist without words, thinks like sex, music, fields of daffodils. Literary criticism assesses how well those difficult things have been achieved. <br /><br />I think I'm not alone in feeling that negative criticism of translators' work would be easier to stomach if it were accompanied by positive, in-depth appreciation of the occasions when we do well. On Twitter last week, I suggested a short list of positive attributes I look out for in translations, and others, including Frank Wynne – double-nominated for the Man Booker International Prize only hours later – added some more. Here are many of them:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Maintaining a rhythm <br />Creative word choices <br />Preserving oddities <br />Finding (new) ways to bring across cultural specifics <br />Playful approaches <br />(Re)creating a viable and distinct voice, authorial or character-driven <br />Taking chances, intervening more than usual<br />Recreating humour <br />Preserving a sense of place/period <br />Imaginatively dealing with dialect/slang, making them sound natural <br />Reproducing a sense of cadence <br />Using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calques">calque</a> to good effect<br />Reproducing the uniqueness of a voice rather than smoothing it out<br />Recovering rare words<br />Maintaining linguistic resonances through consistent word choice<br />Preserving alliteration and <a href="http://freakonomics.com/2007/08/29/contest-beat-this-aptonym/">aptonyms </a></blockquote>I realize it's difficult to spot some of these things if you don't speak the original language and so can't compare, particularly with word choice issues. And I admit that not every translation has to tackle all these difficulties; some writing is simply smooth, so the translator's task is to render it smoothly. But I think we can pick up on many of these positive achievements regardless of our knowledge of the original. I'm currently judging an <a href="https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2018/internationaler_literaturpreis_2018/internationaler_literaturpreis_2018_start.php">award for international literature translated into German</a>, reading books translated from many different languages into a language that isn't my native tongue. I find myself quite capable of spotting in these translations both flaws – inconsistency, bumpy rhythm, unconvincing voices – and achievements – language patina, a sense of urgency, rescued humour, successfully solved linguistic sudoku.<br /><br />And at our monthly translation lab in Berlin, we occasionally take the time to <i>appreciate</i> a specific translation. We compare it to the original and focus only on all its many positives, all the things we might emulate in our work. Sure, there are always things we might have done differently and it's hard to resist pointing them out. But I think if we only have negative role models, we end up aiming only for an impossible notion of flawlessness. <br /><br />Kate Briggs has a gorgeous, reassuring parenthesis on page 86:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">(If you don't want to make mistakes, don't do translations, I was once told – an enabling dictum that I keep close to my heart.)</blockquote>So instead of pretending there can ever be a flawless translation, let's take translators seriously, celebrate what we do well and find ways to criticize without policing. When we review translated literature, let's aim to review all aspects of it. I'm a big fan of the translation reviews at the <a href="https://glasgowreviewofbooks.com/reviews-2/"><i>Glasgow Review of Books</i></a>, by the way, because that's what they do. <br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/x2M0QBBuYQs" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com7http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2018/03/on-appreciating-translations.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-3276447440005301312017-09-12T19:57:00.002+02:002017-09-12T19:57:32.748+02:00Selim Özdogan: Wo noch Licht brenntHaving been thinking a lot about cronyism among critics, I have to start this review with a full disclosure: Selim Özdogan is a friend of mine and has been for about ten years. The friendship evolved through the first book in what became this three-part series, <a href="http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.de/2009/01/die-tochter-des-schmieds.html"><i>Die Tochter des Schmieds</i></a>, when I was a pretty much unpublished translator trying hard to get a foot in the door. Next came <a href="http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.de/2011/04/dear-selim-ozdogan.html"><i>Heimstrasse 52</i></a> and now we have the final part, <a href="http://www.haymonverlag.at/page.cfm?vpath=buchdetails&amp;titnr=7299"><i>Wo noch Licht brennt</i></a>. Together, the three novels tell the life story of Gül, who grows up in 1950s Turkey in the first volume, comes to Germany to work in book two, and in the new novel grows old between the two countries.<br /><br />In my past reviews (linked above) I wrote a lot about what these novels mean in political terms: finally giving a literary voice to the women of the <i>Gastarbeiter</i> generation who propped up the West German economy, emphasizing individual stories rather than religion, painting a three-dimensional portrait of a family. All that is still true of <i>Wo noch Licht brennt</i> but I found myself reading it differently. By now, I feel so familiar with Gül that the last part of her life story felt like a warm and welcoming chat, catching up with a friend after a long gap. There would be tea, and with Gül involved probably pastries. The TV might be on in the background but we'd ignore it, or maybe we'd end up talking about soaps.<br /><br />At the start of the novel, Gül returns to Germany after attempting to retire to Turkey, only to find that her husband has been having an affair while she was away. The Turkish husband having an affair with a German woman is a bit of a trope in stories about <i>Gastarbeiter</i>, I presume because it happened a lot in real life. There are other things in the novel that ring true because we've heard about them before: Gül's difficulties with the German language, her feeling that the Germans are cold, her daughters' and grandchildren's lives being very different to her own. And then there are surprising individual moments: her friendship with a young criminal, her observations of drug use around her, the family back home suddenly arguing, a memorable dieting episode. Gül's husband Fuat is still around to provide wry comments and comic relief, and her daughters lead their own lives with their own ups and downs. We get a potted history of Turkish-German media habits, from five-mark pieces saved for telephone boxes to multiple mobile phones, from the one Turkish programme on German TV to satellite dishes to Facebook.<br /><br />And of course the story is told from Gül's perspective, although not in the first person. It's the tone, perhaps, that makes the novel feel so personal. Gül reflects on life a great deal; she's not an educated woman and the language is simple and sometimes verging on kitsch, but the ideas are not. We follow Gül's moral dilemmas and feel with her; she feels destined to suffer because she lost her mother at a young age and became a kind of mother to her younger siblings. And she thinks about the nature of truth and how we all twist it. Özdogan uses a lot of sensual language and comparisons, and I was very pleased to find once again the repeated glimpses into the future that made the previous novels shine in terms of style. Like its predecessors, the book skips from one episode to the next, showing us small moments of tenderness, shock, pain and friendship. A life lived simply under complicated circumstances.<br /><br />What <i>Wo noch Licht brennt</i> reminded me of, quite strongly at certain points, was Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. I hadn't read her work before the first two in the series, but I think they too fit the bill. Selim Özdogan tells the story of a woman's life in loving detail, revealing social changes as they affect her and showing us how she reacts to them. And he also draws us into that life, makes us almost part of the family, creates an addictive pull so that we <i>have</i> to find out what happens next to this woman, whose life is superficially unremarkable. I think this trilogy is a great achievement – as a fictional document of a group of people otherwise ignored by German writers, as a piece of fiction that calmly tells a gripping story, and as a warm and loving portrait of a strong woman, a great survivor.<br /><br />I wish Anglophone readers will one day get an opportunity to read it.&nbsp; <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/ySAdjn3-XTY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com10http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2017/09/selim-ozdogan-wo-noch-licht-brennt.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-44799097292095050052017-08-16T12:46:00.000+02:002017-08-16T17:04:15.227+02:00German Book Prize Longlist: Some MusingsThe <a href="http://www.new-books-in-german.com/german-book-prize-2017">list of twenty titles</a> in the running for the German Book Prize was announced yesterday. In the past, I've shadowed the prize quite closely. It is, after all, the German-language equivalent to the Man Booker, with a large PR budget. The prize makes people sit up and notice books, and those people include editors at foreign publishing houses. The majority of the winning titles have since been published in English, most recently Lutz Seiler's amazing <a href="https://scribepublications.co.uk/books-authors/books/kruso"><i>Kruso</i></a>, translated by Tess Lewis. So it's important for my work.<br /><br />But. Amit Chaudhuri has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/16/booker-prize-bad-for-writing-alternative-celebrate-literature">a piece in today's <i>Guardian</i></a> about why the Booker is bad for writers. The idea is not a new one: choosing a "book of the year" focuses attention on one book at the expense of others and there are some who suggest it encourages writers to produce a certain kind of book. Chaudhuri criticizes the Booker system and also those who criticize the judges' choices, saying they "ritually add to its allure". So here I am, about to join Chaudhuri in ritually adding to the German Book Prize's allure.<br /><br />Allow me a quick caveat before I begin: having done my own <a href="http://www.dublinliteraryaward.ie/2017-judging-panel/">"jury service"</a> for the International DUBLIN Literary Award, I understand that choices are made within a complex dynamic, partly due to time pressure. I'm not in favour of imposing quotas on longlists or shortlists, but I do think judges should be aware of the messages they send with their lists. I was proud of <a href="http://www.dublinliteraryaward.ie/2017-shortlist/">our Dublin shortlist</a>; it was beautifully international, covered a wide range of styles and subjects, and the gender ratio mirrored that of the nominations. Yes, I counted – after the fact.<br /><br />Let me move on to the German Book Prize longlist now. The <a href="https://www.deutscher-buchpreis.de/nominiert/#section-longlist">award website </a>offers brief descriptions of the nominated books, which is good because I've only read part of one of them; eight of them aren't published until next month. There is, however, a definite theme: men (writers, professors, occasionally more down-to-earth characters) who have reached a crossroads in their lives. A writer friend and I picked apart the list yesterday, lying on towels at the outside pool. We ended up doubled over with laughter... We counted nine of these beauties. Admittedly, neither of us has read any of them, and we suspected a couple of them might be playing with the trope in an amusing way. But nine out of twenty books being riffs on a similar theme still seems... a little samey.<br /><br />What I've decided, then, is to look only at the novels on the list that interest me. It's my party over here and I get to make the guest list. I am flat out nonplussed by books about white men over forty breaking out of the mould to make life-changing decisions. But there are a few books I definitely do like the look of.<br /><br />In alphabetical order, with links to information in English where available (and German where not):<br /><br />Franzobel: <a href="https://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/en/buch/the-raft-of-the-medusa/978-3-552-05816-3/"><i>Das Floss der Medusa</i></a><i> – </i>what happened on board the raft of the Medusa, as depicted in Géricault's 1819 painting? Could be an examination of racism, human nature, survival instincts...<br /><br />Jakob Nolte: <a href="http://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/schreckliche-gewalten.html?lid=2"><i>Schreckliche Gewalten</i></a> – werwolves, feminist terrorism, 20th century: <i>"</i>a black rainbow of horror"<i>. </i>What's not to be very curious about?<i><br /></i><br /><br />Kerstin Preiwuß: <a href="https://www.piper.de/buecher/nach-onkalo-isbn-978-3-8270-1314-9"><i>Nach Onkalo</i></a> – almost falling into the dull trope, but this one's about a forty-year-old man left stranded when his mother dies and how he finds ways to survive.<br /><br />Sven Regener: <a href="http://www.kiwi-verlag.de/rights/buch/wiener-strasse/978-3-86971-136-2/"><i>Wiener Strasse</i></a> – this is the one all my non-literary friends are looking forward to. I'm hoping it will stand alone because it's part of a whole series of books revolving around Frank Lehmann, a hapless charmer of a character who stumbles through life in West Germany, this time in 1980s Kreuzberg. I translated a sample and loved every minute of it. The first sentence is eight words long; the next two and a half pages. And it's funny. I am biased but I'd like a UK publisher to pick it up, even though <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1035631/berlin-blues/"><i>Berlin Blues</i></a> didn't make much of a splash in 2004. Times have changed, UK publishers!<br /><br />Sasha Marianna Salzmann: <a href="http://www.suhrkamp.de/buecher/beside_yourself-sasha_marianna_salzmann_42762.html?d_view=english"><i>Außer sich</i></a> – English world rights have already sold to Text Publishing, so you'll get to read this at some point. I know I'm looking forward to it hugely. Antisemitism, Soviet Union, migration, family history, gender identity. By a writer whose plays and whose work at the Gorki Theater I really admire. A shining star on this list.<br /><br />Christine Wunnicke: <a href="http://www.berenberg-verlag.de/programm/katie/"><i>Katie</i></a> – how could I resist a book inadvertently named after me and set in 1870s London? Except I've had it on my shelves since the spring and haven't got round to it. I will now, and I suppose that's part of the point of the prize.<br /><br />Well, would you look at that? The love german books shortlist of six is gender balanced, all by itself. The German Book Prize longlist is not – but take a look at publishers' catalogues for an instant idea of why. They bring out significantly more men than women on their German literary fiction lists, and that's reflected in all award longlists. Thankfully, women and men have started to question conditions in the bottleneck of creative writing schools. You can read their texts on the <a href="https://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/blog/">Merkur Blog</a>, and some of them are horrifying. <br />My hope is that this feeder, the programmes that take in a majority of female students and turn out a majority of male debut novelists, will change. And that editors at German houses will pay a little more attention to who they're publishing, perhaps shift the focus from the late works of accomplished white men to more innovative people and projects.<br /><br />To some extent, it's a coincidence that the German Book Prize longlist was announced on the same day as President Trump applied the term "very fine people" to white supremacists. In other ways, it's not. The German Book Prize reflects the state of German literary publishing, which reflects the German-speaking countries as a whole. Some exciting things are happening, some progressive ideas are coming to the fore, but all in a culture in which the middle-aged, middle-class white male experience is considered the norm and worthy of more attention.&nbsp; &nbsp; <br /><br />In his <i>Guardian</i> article, Chaudhuri writes:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">I’m not saying that the Booker shouldn’t exist. I’m saying that it&nbsp;requires an alternative, and the&nbsp;alternative isn’t another prize.&nbsp;It has to do instead with writers reclaiming agency. The meaning of a writer’s work must be created, and argued for, by writers themselves, and not by some extraneous source of endorsement (...). (A)s in other walks of life under&nbsp;capitalism, there has been a loss&nbsp;of&nbsp;initiative among writers: a readiness to let others decide why their work is significant while they&nbsp;busy themselves at literary festivals (...). Only rarely is silence a useful riposte.</blockquote>I think that's a good conclusion, and I take from it the following tentative plan: as time and life allow, I'm going to follow the novels on the longlist that interest me, and also draw attention to other exciting German books coming out this autumn. I agree that a prize nomination is not the only measure of excellence we have, and nor are sales figures or numbers of reviews or many of the factors editors consider when commissioning translations. Defining excellence, meanwhile, is an impossible task, just like translation. The kind I relish most.<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/3NQ3Jz_BuVA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com7http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2017/08/german-book-prize-longlist-some-musings.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-90522493918843879092017-08-09T22:27:00.000+02:002017-08-09T22:27:01.209+02:00Käthe Kruse: Lob des ImperfektsKäthe Kruse has a book out, <a href="http://www.mikrotext.de/books/kaethe-kruse-lob-des-imperfekts-kunst-musik-und-wohnen-im-west-berlin-der-1980er-jahre/"><i>Lob des Imperfekts</i>.</a> <i>Kunst, Musik und Wohnen im West-Berlin der 1980er Jahre. </i>It's an ebook, actually, about music, art and squatting back in the day. Fittingly, it is not neat and tidy, not <i>professional</i> as we may have come to expect.*<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BnbEaQWNLuI/WYtvLJDHd0I/AAAAAAAAAJA/DSJFgp3fRtwi8cVBXTbbSgz9hXmwL-ZRACLcBGAs/s1600/Cover-Kaethe-Kruse-Lob-des-Imperfekts-mikrotext-2017-web-240x360.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="240" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BnbEaQWNLuI/WYtvLJDHd0I/AAAAAAAAAJA/DSJFgp3fRtwi8cVBXTbbSgz9hXmwL-ZRACLcBGAs/s320/Cover-Kaethe-Kruse-Lob-des-Imperfekts-mikrotext-2017-web-240x360.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />Kruse was the drummer in the band <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_T%C3%B6dliche_Doris">Die Tödliche Doris</a>. Wikipedia says the article I've linked to here relies too much on references to primary sources. What other sources would you want to rely on, I wonder? The band was part of the Geniale Dilletanten movement. They spelled it like that on purpose, unlike the Wikipedia article, where someone "corrected" the spelling in 2012 and it has stayed that way. Which has its own charm, I suppose. The idea, as I understand from Kruse's book, was to just get on and do things, make music and art and books with enthusiasm, <i>ingenuity,</i> rather than years of practice. <i>Dilletantism</i> like the herb and your favourite auntie. You're never going to achieve perfection, so why try? Kind of like art-school punk, to use an Anglophone comparison, only less angry, less a reaction to what came before, and more a simple creative urge? Maybe. I'm not an expert.<br /><br />And that was kind of the point. Kruse writes of the movement:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Perfection can't be expected. Most of us couldn't play any instruments or couldn't repeat what we'd played once before. And that's where the basic premise of the Geniale Dilletanten comes to the fore: that anyone can make music who has ideas and energy (...). In any case, the Geniale Dilletanten stopped leaving the things they cared about to the experts, the self-appointed or otherwise responsible, and took charge of them in person.</blockquote>So it's not exactly easy listening. My mum used to have an Einstürzende Neubauten CD and she'd play it really loud and hoover at the same when the downstairs neighbours had pissed her off. <br /><br />But it was a thing, you know? You can hear their influence still now in some bands. Kruse writes about the music scene in 80s West Berlin, where everyone's surname seems to have been Müller and everyone worked in either a bar or a record store, and people ran shops that never sold anything, and it seems like an island where money wasn't necessary and they could make art out of embroidered cushions and get ripped off by a gallery owner and then get their revenge by mass-producing the cushions and selling them for much cheaper, and they'd get invited to art things all over the Western world and do a show or make a video and send that and it would be funny and fun and everything was an experiment and no one got up early in the morning.<br /><br />And just as that might be getting a bit samey, with some other dude called Müller doing some other artsy thing, the book switches from music and art to something more tangible: how these people actually lived. This is the longest piece of the three that make up the book, followed by a more straight-forward interview with Käthe Kruse. Like the other two articles, it's been used before but is very recent, published in an architecture magazine. Because putting together old things to make new things is good. So Kruse writes – in an almost conversational style – about how she joined one of West Berlin's 164 squats in 1982 and how the squatters lived and worked and went about saving buildings that were slated for demolition, and with them whole swathes of Kreuzberg and Schöneberg.<br /><br />The experiments extended beyond art, then, to the way people lived. In her building, they started out with forty people sharing space in which to cook, eat and sleep, allocating tasks like washing up, cooking, scavenging building material, repairs, construction. What began as a temporary solution to a lack of affordable living space became more permanent, with band practice rooms and then whole water processing and energy production plants set up in the basement, and smaller, more private spaces coming about as and when needed.<br /><br />One of the reasons I was so fascinated is that I've known people over the years who have lived in these houses, and seen some of the conflicts that arose there, from a distance. But Kruse details how they were dealt with – new people moving in and bringing bursts of energy, employing a janitor to make sure someone's responsible for certain jobs, making sure the smaller living units are shared by people who get on well. <a href="http://berlin-besetzt.de/#!">About half of West Berlin's squats</a> have since been legalized, and Kruse takes us through that process as well, and the compromises it entailed. But basically, the squats created the economic conditions for those who lived in them to lead those laid-back lives, experimenting with instruments and making new things. I'm glad the two aspects come together in one short book.<br /><br />So here's the thing I've been thinking. What if some of us bloggers are our own breed of ingenious dilletants? Doing things our own way out of enthusiasm, writing differently to paid critics, the <i>experts</i> in our case, less for the fame than for the fun, having come across a space in which we can experiment. Sure, some literary bloggers go on to write professionally, and good for them. But at a time when <i>monetizing</i> is almost expected of us, maybe it's cool to just make something new for the love of it and not for the cash.<br /><br /><i>*The book is professionally produced, of course, by <a href="http://www.mikrotext.de/">Mikrotext</a>, with photos and all the features you'd expect from an ebook, plus samples from their other stuff. And there'll be a book launch somewhere in Kreuzberg, at some date in September, which is again nicely dilletantish. </i><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/uuL-FiDteWo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com3http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2017/08/kathe-kruse-lob-des-imperfekts.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-89297108276697920492017-07-23T13:23:00.001+02:002017-08-16T13:01:31.685+02:00Gedanken übers Außenseitersein und Sexismus<style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Sabine Scholl <a href="http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2017-07/herkunft-elternhaus-heimat-zugehoerigkeit-10nach8">schrieb neulich so gut</a> darüber, wie es sich anfühlt, im Literaturbetrieb Außenseiterin zu sein. Ich möchte darauf antworten, meine eigene Geschichte erzählen, auch mit den vielen guten Texten über Sexismus an Schreibschulen im Hinterkopf, besonders die von <a href="https://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/2017/07/11/ein-paar-ehrliche-anmerkungen-zur-sexismusdebatte/#more-6121">Martina Hefter</a> und <a href="https://www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/2017/07/14/austeilen-abgrenzen-angstmachen-einstecken-fuenf-jahre-als-schreibschueler/#more-6177">Stefan Mesch</a>. Letzte Woche kam eine Anfrage von einer Zeitung, ein paar Zeilen zum Thema Sexismus im Literaturbetrieb zu schicken. Ich konnte nicht, weil ich mitten in einem Umzug steckte – aber auch weil ich dachte, ein paar Zeilen zu meinen Erfahrungen reichen nicht aus, die Sache ist komplizierter. </span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Für mein Gefühl bin ich mehrfache Außenseiterin im deutschen Literaturbetrieb. Ich bin nicht in Deutschland aufgewachsen, deutsch ist nicht meine Muttersprache. Ich bin Übersetzerin und keine Autorin oder Kritikerin. Ich bin atheistisch erzogen, in der dritten Generation. Ich bin Mutter, halbzeit-alleinerziehend, auch das in der dritten Generation. Ich habe Freunde, die keine Bücher lesen. Ich bin nicht verheiratet, war es nie, und habe gerade keinen Partner. Was ich auch nicht habe, um an Sabine Scholl anzuknüpfen, ist einen Bildungsbürgerhintergrund.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Ich komme aus London. Dort reden wir noch über Klasse, manchmal vereinfachend; dabei ist das Thema gar nicht so geradlinig. Meine Eltern sind typische Aufsteiger, haben die Klasse gewechselt als die Gesellschaft in den 60ern durchlässiger wurde. Die Mutter bekam mit elf ein Stipendium für begabte Arbeiterkinder, besuchte eine Internatsschule, fühlte sich sieben Jahre lang fehl am Platz. Zu Hause arbeitete ihr Vater als Lastwagenfahrer und die Mutter als Dienstmädchen und Putzfrau. Mit ihrer guten Schulbildung ausgestattet, fing meine Mutter ein Studium an – hörte aber schnell wieder auf, weil sie meinen Vater vermisste. Er hatte die Schule mit sechzehn abgebrochen, landete nach einer Weile dank Vollbeschäftigung auf den Füßen und lernte Tontechniker bei der BBC. Seine Mutter hatte ihre drei Söhne alleine aufgezogen, war Stenotypistin bei der Post, während ihr Exmann in Fabriken arbeitete und in der kommunistischen Partei aktiv war. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">So waren meine Eltern nirgendwo ganz zugehörig. Seine Arbeit und ihre Bildung trennten sie von der Arbeiterklasse ab, schenkten ihnen aber nur oberflächliche, prekäre Bürgerlichkeit. Sie kauften sich ein Reihenhaus, lasen sich Wissen an, mein Vater brachte sich selbst Klavierspielen bei, meine Mutter machte Verwaltungsjobs und <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">consciousness-building</i> und studierte dann doch mit vierzig Sozialwissenschaften, nachdem die beiden sich getrennt hatten. Meine Schwester und ich wuchsen mit Büchern auf, aber auch mit Popmusik und Fernsehen. Wir machten Amateurtheater, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantomime">Pantomimes</a></i>in der Mehrzweckhalle, fuhren als Scheidungskinder nicht mehr ins Ausland in den Urlaub sondern immer in verregnete englische Kleinstädte. Wir hatten verschiedene Untermieterinnen, wie die Großeltern schon ihr Einkommen aufgebessert hatten. Alles war gut, das Geld reichte meist knapp. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Und dann waren wir dran: meine Schwester und ich studierten beide. Meine Mutter hatte gerade rechtzeitig verhindert, dass wir die ersten Familienmitglieder an der Uni waren. Meine Schwester wurde nicht fertig, ich schon. Sie arbeitet jetzt mit älteren Menschen als eine Art ungelernte Sozialarbeiterin, ist auch alleinerziehend, hat eine Behinderung und kommt damit klar. Alles ist gut, das Geld reicht meist knapp. Bei mir sieht’s ähnlich aus, nur dass ich meine Arbeit liebe und keinen Anspruch auf eine Sozialwohnung habe. Den Bachelorabschluss eingesackt, bin ich bloß schnell weg von der Uni, von England, ab nach Berlin. Ich zog mit einem Gartenbaulehrling zusammen, er hatte eine Einraumwohnung in Friedrichshain, mit Ofenheizung aber immerhin mit eigenem Badezimmer. Nachdem wir uns trennten fiel er durch die Gesellenprüfung durch. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Nach weiteren lebensbereichernden Brüchen begab ich mich nichtsahnend in deutsche Literaturkreisen. Ich finde es hier schwer, Klassenhintergründe einzuschätzen; ich kann die Zeichen immer noch schlecht lesen und die Deutschen reden auch nicht freiwillig darüber. Florian Kessler hatte aber vermutlich recht mit seiner Ärztesöhne-Theorie. Was ich gemerkt habe: man kennt sich mit klassischer Musik aus aber hört textbetonten Indie-Pop. Man trägt keine knalligen Farben. Männer machen Witze, Frauen lachen – aber nicht zu laut. Man reist viel und versteht was von Wein aber trinkt selten über den Durst. Man flirtet nicht, höchstens sehr subtil und am späteren Abend. Oder vielleicht steht man nur nicht auf mich, keine Ahnung. Jedenfalls mache ich einiges falsch und fühle mich oft fremd in der Szene, manchmal wie eine teilnehmende Beobachterin.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Und doch finde ich immer wieder Räume, in denen ich mich wohlfühle. Manchmal sind sie vorübergehend: Buchmessen, der ehemalige Salon von Adler und Söhne, bestimmte Lesungsreihen. Oft liegt es an den Gastgebern, die sich wie zum Beispiel im LCB darum bemühen, dass alle sich wohlfühlen. Das sind Orte, wo ich im pinken Kleid zu roten Schuhen tanzen und Witze reißen kann, wo ich betrunken die letzte Bahn verpassen kann und jemand nimmt mich im Taxi mit, wo ich zu viel von mir erzählen kann, immer schön in der verpönten ersten Person, wo es auch mal knallen darf. Manchmal erschaffe ich diese Räume selbst, in der Form eines Blogs oder einer Veranstaltung. Ich will weiterhin einiges falsch machen. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Und es gibt Leute, viele davon Frauen, die auch keine glatten Lebensläufe haben und die sich gegenseitig unterstützen. Ich erhalte von vielen Frauen im Literaturbetrieb Hilfe und Zuspruch: es sind andere Mütter, Alleinerziehende, Feministinnen, Ausländerinnen, Übersetzerinnen, andere lautlachende, spaßverstehende, talentierte Fettnäpfchentretende. Diese Frauen und Männer sind es, die mich in diesem komischen Betrieb bei der Stange halten. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I hope you know who you are.</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Denn ja, der deutsche Literaturbetrieb ist immer noch von bürgerlichen weißen Männern dominiert. Es reicht also schon, eine Frau zu sein, um sich hier als Außenseiterin zu empfinden. Der Betrieb ist immer noch ein Ort, wo Frauen nach ihrem Aussehen verurteilt werden und sich vielleicht deswegen selten trauen, Körperlichkeit in ihrem Schreiben zuzulassen. Wo sie sich auch selten trauen, Wut zu zeigen, radikal zu denken, reden und schreiben. Deswegen freue ich mich so sehr, dass ehemalige und jetzige Schreibschulstudierende über die Bedingungen dort klagen. Ich glaube, ich bin nicht die Richtige, um über Sexismus-Erfahrungen im Betrieb zu erzählen, denn ich stecke wie gesagt nicht richtig drin und möchte es auch nicht unbedingt. Ich bin nicht vom Wohlwollen der bürgerlichen weißen Männern abhängig, jedenfalls nicht der deutschen. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Aber ich beobachte vom Rande und wünsche mir, dass Frauen es leichter haben, erfolgreiche Schriftstellerinnen zu werden, damit ich ihre Bücher übersetzen kann. Bücher von Menschen ohne glatten Lebensläufe, wie einige der Autorinnen, die ich übersetzt habe und übersetzen werde: Inka Parei, Annett Gröschner, Christa Wolf, Helene Hegemann, Rusalka Reh, Olga Grjasnowa, Heike Geißler. Und denkt noch an diese anderen geilen Schreibbräute: Katja Lange-Müller, Herta Müller, Julia Franck, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Judith Hermann, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Antje Rávic Strubel... Ich wünsche mir mehr, noch mehr, ich möchte baden in Büchern von unangepassten Autorinnen. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="DE" style="mso-ansi-language: DE;">Passt euch meinetwegen bloß nicht an. Schreibt nicht brav, schreibt mit Pathos oder Wut oder Witz oder Experimentierlust. Macht dasselbe im Leben. Helft euch gegenseitig, heißt andere Frauen willkommen. Seid eure eigene Seilschaft. Macht das Außenseitersein zur Tugend, erklärt euren Literaturbetrieb zur Außenseiterinnenrepublik. Seid geschmacklos und verhaltet euch falsch.</span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/0nS7n2lsfcg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com4http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2017/07/gedanken-ubers-auenseitersein-und.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-14169600031811160202017-03-07T09:27:00.000+01:002017-03-07T09:27:41.733+01:00Very BusyI have been very busy, translating and parenting as usual but also judging the <a href="http://www.dublinliteraryaward.ie/">International Dublin Literary Award</a>. That means reading 147 novels published in English during 2015, translations and original English writing nominated by libraries all over the world. I bought a special armchair for the purpose. It has been thrilling, enlightening and fascinating but time-consuming and of course I haven't been able to read many German books.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uqqSVa7wOgo/WL5uqZ4kwzI/AAAAAAAAAIs/2-jeBHeJrKQYToZr3UaDSwu1VKj0cqjuQCLcB/s1600/busy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uqqSVa7wOgo/WL5uqZ4kwzI/AAAAAAAAAIs/2-jeBHeJrKQYToZr3UaDSwu1VKj0cqjuQCLcB/s320/busy.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />The two I've squeezed in and liked very much are Olga Grjasnowa's forthcoming <a href="http://www.aufbau-verlag.de/index.php/gott-ist-nicht-schuchtern.html"><i>Gott ist nicht schüchtern</i></a> and Fatma Aydemir's <a href="https://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/ellbogen/978-3-446-25441-1/"><i>Ellbogen</i></a>, both novels.<br /><br />I'll also try and update my statistics on newly published original German fiction by gender to cover this spring. I'd hoped that someone else might start working on stats in German publishing but nobody seems to have gone for it so far.<br /><br />And I just read Ekkehard Knörer's rather delightful <a href="http://www.zeit.de/kultur/literatur/2017-03/blogger-social-media-gegenwart-literatur/komplettansicht">nostalgic sigh of an essay</a> about early German blogs. In that spirit, a personal revelation of sorts: I've been thinking quite hard about book reviewing, about whether I could do my bit to tip the scales in terms of women writing criticism and reviews in German publications. Two hurdles, though: it takes me a long time to write in German and I have no wish to pretend to be an all-knowing general authority without a personality. I wrote a slightly po-faced personal "manifesto" about how I would like to write reviews for German publications; maybe I'll put that here too.<br /><br />Still thinking. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/BmsitcWOXxA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com37http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2017/03/very-busy.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-66481462796374543252016-11-15T19:59:00.000+01:002016-11-15T19:59:12.589+01:00Fantasy Publishing House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YaP44KAzbVA/WCtSZ4kKTuI/AAAAAAAAAII/1cOHDU_0OzsNMkI_UOyvHBvPsoqUSTezACLcB/s1600/sunbeam-alpine-buying-guide-and-review-1959-1968-4918_12517_640X470.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YaP44KAzbVA/WCtSZ4kKTuI/AAAAAAAAAII/1cOHDU_0OzsNMkI_UOyvHBvPsoqUSTezACLcB/s320/sunbeam-alpine-buying-guide-and-review-1959-1968-4918_12517_640X470.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Seeking solace, I have been daydreaming about my ideal job. So here it is: I'd like to be the person who commissions translations in a fantasy publishing house where money is no object. Obviously I'd only do that half the time; the rest of my time would still be spent translating fabulous books from German. And travelling around in my chauffeur-driven Sunbeam Alpine (see above). Well-paid staff would do the other, more gruelling parts of the publishing work: accounting, editing, production, publicity, distribution...<br /><br />My translator friends would come to me with impeccable recommendations for books to publish, and I would say yes, of course, if you love the book then it must be wonderful. Let's do it. And critics will snatch them out of our hands and fight over who gets to review them. But there'd be no need to argue because it's fine to have several reviews of any particular book, even in one publication, each pointing out in a supportive manner what delightful aspects the previous reviewer couldn't find room to mention. Although probably column inches wouldn't be an issue in the first place.<br /><br />My first list, on the German side of things, would consist of the following titles:<br /><br />Non-fiction<br />Heike Geißler: <a href="https://nplusonemag.com/authors/geisslerheike/"><i>Saisonarbeit/Season's Greetings from Fulfillment </i></a><br />Carolin Emcke: <a href="http://www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights/book/gegen_den_hass/9783103972313"><i>Gegen den Hass/Against Hate</i></a><br /><br />Fiction<br />Julya Rabinowich: <a href="https://weysis.com/2016/09/14/julya-rabinowich-toads-tempest/"><i>Krötenliebe/Toads and Tempest</i></a><br />Antje Rávic Strubel: <a href="http://www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights/book/in_den_waeldern_des_menschlichen_herzens/9783100022813"><i>In den Wäldern des menschlichen Herzens/Into the Woods of the Human Heart</i></a><br />Senthuran Varatharajah: <a href="http://www.fischerverlage.de/rights/foreign_rights/book/vor_der_zunahme_der_zeichen/9783100024152"><i>Vor der Zunahme der Zeichen/Before the Signs Mount Up</i></a><br />Rasha Khayat: <a href="http://www.dumont-buchverlag.de/header-menu/lizenzen-foreign-rights/lizenzen-foreign-rightstitles-nonfiction-fiction/books/book/Buch/showforeign/khayat-weil-wir-laengst-9783832198145/"><i>Weil wir längst woanders sind/Because We're Elsewhere Now</i></a><br /><br />Children/YA<br />Finn-Ole Heinrich: <a href="https://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/en/buch/the-amazing-and-astonishing-adventures-of-maulina-schmittpart-1-my-shattered-kingdom/978-3-446-24304-0/"><i>Die erstaunlichen Abenteuer der Maulina Schmitt/The Amazing and Astonishing Adventures of Maulina Schmitt</i></a><br />Kirsten Fuchs: <a href="http://www.rowohlt.de/catalogue/taschenbuch/maedchenmeute.html"><i>Mädchenmeute/Girl Gang</i></a><br /><br />I might be too busy being driven onto beaches to do all the translations myself. If you have unlimited funds and would like to give me a part-time job doing exactly this, feel free to contact me. I understand if you'd rather invest your unlimited funds in getting rid of reactionary world leaders, though, so if I don't hear from you I'll know that's where your priorities lie. That's fine. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/VaUsoKYzFg4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com17http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/11/fantasy-publishing-house.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-53872068335078676862016-10-17T13:46:00.003+02:002016-10-17T13:48:19.955+02:00Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer – A Translator's Note<style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-85Y1m07Kagc/WAS548xPyyI/AAAAAAAAAHw/aYlgD2Rvukk1r-hg_3ccKyCCvKeE3YIwwCLcB/s1600/B%2526M.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-85Y1m07Kagc/WAS548xPyyI/AAAAAAAAAHw/aYlgD2Rvukk1r-hg_3ccKyCCvKeE3YIwwCLcB/s320/B%2526M.jpg" width="256" /></a></i></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">February 2016&nbsp;</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I have just submitted my translation of Clemens Meyer’s <a href="https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/bricks-and-mortar"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bricks and Mortar</i></a>. It’s the best book I’ve translated so far, has stretched me the most and required the most drastic approaches. I feel tearful. For added bathos – and this is a book with a lot of bathos – my email got an out-of-office reply from the publisher. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I’ve been following the novel since 2008, when Clemens first published what became the final chapter as a short story in an anthology. It was even filthier than the present version. He read it at an event that was recorded for radio, checking nervously with his editor if it was really OK to put it on record. Last week I read from that final chapter myself, blushing, and was pleased that other people liked it too. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It took a long time to find a publisher willing to take a risk on this novel, which was originally published in German in 2013. It is long, which means my translation has been expensive. And it’s a playful, ambitious, neo-modernist, Marxism-tinged exploration of the development of the east German prostitution market, from next to nothing in 1989 to full decriminalization and diversification in the present day. Not everybody’s cup of tea.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Translating it was all-consuming. It required a great deal of research because I wasn’t directly familiar with the sex industry before working on it. But it was also emotionally draining because of the intensity of the writing. Translators are used to immersing ourselves in writers’ work but this book – and Clemens’s writing in general – is so unflinching that it affected me more than ever before. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">***</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Most translation requires us to explain the source culture to some extent. In this case, though, the legal situation with regard to prostitution in Germany is completely different to that in the UK and the US, even Nevada. Since 2001, German law has enabled prostitutes to work under regular employment contracts, explicitly stating that prostitution is no longer an unconscionable act. Sex work is legal and widely accepted – although the area is not free from moral judgement – and sexual services are advertised plainly. That means the language around it is different.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I started out by looking for British ads for sexual services. They do exist but they are so euphemistic as to be no use to me; the language in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bricks and Mortar</i> is very much to the point. Meyer plays on the codes used in small ads, abbreviations and cute phrases, and I needed an equivalent that made sense. Thankfully, there are internet forums where punters rate ‘adult service providers’, and one of them provides a glossary containing exactly what I needed. I also read the Feminist Press’s very useful </span><i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">$pread: The Best of the Magazine that Illuminated the Sex Industry and Started a Media Revolution </span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">for a sense of how people in the US sex industry talk about their work, and many articles in the British press. TV dramas were also helpful for a sense of how readers might expect sex workers to talk, especially the excellent <i>Band of Gold</i>. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Another key difference between the cultures is that a lot of prostitution in Germany takes place in apartments in normal buildings; I once lived above one, in fact, which closed down after a shooting. Street prostitution exists but is unsafe, like anywhere else, and only comes up on the margins of the novel. Again, that makes the language different. Where British and American sex workers speak of “clients”, I preferred to stick to the German “guests” with its suggestion of hospitality, an issue several characters raise. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And once I started creating my own language for the novel’s unique situation, I felt I could take that approach even further. So readers will come across two neologisms – “in the Zone” and “after the Wall”. I hope this is the kind of novel in which readers can deal with new phrases. I’m very pleased with “in the Zone” because it sounds aptly science-fictional, referring simply to East Germany in communist days. And “after the Wall” is shorthand for “after the fall of the Iron Curtain”. Where German has the succinct “Wende” for the turning point in its late-20th-century history, a sailing metaphor, English struggles with all sorts of long-winded explanations. Meyer writes very rhythmically and it was important to me to cut anything that interrupted the flow – although that flow is sometimes jagged and abrupt, sometimes smooth and colloquial. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Emboldened, I then did something translators of “serious literature” are not supposed to do. I changed a character’s name. A hard-punning punter by the name of Ecki – a quiet homage to Hubert Fichte’s Jäcki in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Die Palette</i> – has an internet radio show called Eckis Edelkirsch, named after a cheap cherry liqueur. But that reference wasn’t strong enough for me, or not strong enough for a character who’s anything but subtle. I wanted the crass “cherry”, the overtly sexual title for an overtly sexual show, not something foreign and unpronounceable. And so Ecki became Jerry and his show became Jerry’s Cherry Pie, inspired by a sex shop in West Ealing. Meyer gave me permission for the change – and Jerry is still not far from Jäcki. Jerry’s two chapters were a joy to translate, punning and rhyming and getting almost psychedelic.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">My favourite chapter, though, is now called ‘My Huckleberry Friend’. Meyer, knowing I was so keen on it, gave me the first page of the chapter from the first galley proof – in a frame – for my fortieth birthday. It’s typical of his writing, interweaving two women’s voices and never making it quite clear whether what’s happening is really happening. The German title – like many chapter titles in the book – is a song, a slow waltz in fact. The two sex workers may or may not end up dancing to the song, which isn’t mentioned by name other than in the melancholy title, a song about saying goodbye: ‘Sag beim Abschied leise Servus’. Although the direct reference to parting is lost, I hope my new title conjures up Audrey Hepburn’s yearning for glamour in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breakfast at Tiffany’s</i>, a film I’m sure the two characters might watch together. And ‘Moon River’ is a slow waltz that many readers can probably hum, keeping that essential rhythmic element intact.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">***</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">July 2016</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">As of the 4th of July, </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">the Commons inquiry into prostitution has recommended legalizing brothels and soliciting as quickly as possible in the UK. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bricks and Mortar</i> may give British readers an idea of what might happen once sex workers are allowed to work in greater safety. First and foremost, though, I hope readers will value it as much as I do, as a novel that makes no apologies as it pushes back the boundaries of what literature can do. ‘A journey into the night, brutal, dark, somnambulistic, surreal and often cruelly precise. A book about Germany, today’ wrote the critic Volker Weidermann in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung</i>. He was right.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">*** </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">17 October 2016</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">Bricks and Mortar</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"> is published in the UK today by Fitcarraldo Editions. My copies should arrive on Wednesday. </span></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/aYYIUzFpOe4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com9http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/10/bricks-and-mortar-by-clemens-meyer.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-3608209720282644842016-09-25T21:13:00.001+02:002016-09-25T21:13:40.876+02:00Sie können aber gut Deutsch – Ade, Chamisso-Preis <style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Times; panose-1:2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} a:link, span.MsoHyperlink {mso-style-priority:99; color:blue; mso-themecolor:hyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed {mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; color:purple; mso-themecolor:followedhyperlink; text-decoration:underline; text-underline:single;} p {mso-style-priority:99; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0cm; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Times; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} --></style> <br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE"><a href="http://www.boersenblatt.net/artikel-adelbert-von-chamisso-preis_soll_eingestellt_werden.1238172.html">Der Chamisso-Preis schafft sich ab</a>. Die Trägerin des Literaturpreises für „</span><span lang="DE">herausragende auf Deutsch schreibende Autoren, deren Werk von einem Kulturwechsel geprägt ist“, die Robert-Bosch-Stiftung, begründete</span><span lang="DE"> die Einstellung mit der nicht unzutreffenden Aussage, Schreibende mit Migrationsgeschichte könnten inzwischen viele andere Preise gewinnen. Geschäftsführerin Uta-Micaela Dürig sagte: „Viele dieser Autoren wollen heute nur für ihre literarischen Leistungen gewürdigt werden, und nicht wegen ihres biografischen Hintergrunds.“</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">&nbsp;</span> </span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">Bei diesem Satz sollte man aufhorchen, denn er ist ein Zeichen, dass die Organisatorinnen auf die Schriftsteller hören. Der Chamisso-Preis entstand in den 1980er Jahren, angetrieben von Harald Weinrich, u.a. Professor für Deutsch als Fremdsprache. Die Auszeichnung förderte ursprünglich „deutsch schreibende Autoren nicht deutscher Muttersprache“. Sie war also die mit Preisgeld aufgeladene Verkörperung des zweischneidigen Kompliments „Sie können aber gut Deutsch!“ Das mag im letzten Jahrhundert angemessen gewesen sein; tatsächlich hat sich aber durch den Preis oder vielleicht nur nebenbei viel geändert – „Gastarbeiterliteratur“ ist als Begriff durch „Migrationsliteratur“ oder den schauderhaften Euphemismus „Chamissoliteratur“ ersetzt worden; Autoren, die woanders geboren sind, zeigen Präsenz auf Nominierungslisten und in den Medien und vertreten Deutschland im Ausland. Was diese aber nicht mehr brauchen, ist eine ins Gönnerhafte neigende Auszeichnung für ihre (fremd-)sprachlichen Leistungen.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">Literaturpreise schaffen Aufmerksamkeit, keine Frage. In Großbritannien wurde der jetzige Baileys Prize für Romane von Schriftstellerinnen ins Leben gerufen, nachdem 1991 keine der sechs Nominierten für den Booker Prize Frauen waren. Inzwischen ist der Baileys Prize wirtschaftlich sehr erfolgreich; die Autorinnen auf der Shortlist können damit rechnen, viele neue Leserinnen zu gewinnen. Der Unterschied zum Chamisso-Preis? Die Initiative kam von innen: von Frauen (und Männern) innerhalb des Literaturbetriebs. Die Preisjury besteht seitdem ausschließlich aus Frauen. Der Chamisso-Preis wurde von Menschen ohne Migrationserfahrung gegründet; in der diesjährigen Jury sitzen sechs Biodeutsche und Feridun Zaimoglu. Der Preis ist – natürlich wohlmeinend – von oben herab entstanden und wird noch heute so verliehen.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">Über die Jahre hat die Bosch-Stiftung versucht, den Chamisso-Preis zeitgemäßer zu gestalten. Die Kriterien wandelten von der nichtdeutschen Muttersprache zum prägenden Kulturwechsel; 2015 ging die Auszeichnung an Esther Kinsky und Uljana Wolf, zwei in Deutschland geborene Schriftstellerinnen, die üblicherweise von dem Migrantenetikett verschont bleiben. Das war ein großer und richtiger Schritt. Die Stiftung schreibt dazu auf ihrer Webseite: „</span><span lang="DE">Die gesellschaftliche Realität zeigt heute, dass eine stetig wachsende Autorengruppe mit Migrationsgeschichte Deutsch als selbstverständliche Muttersprache spricht. Für die Literatur dieser Autoren ist der Sprach- und Kulturwechsel zwar thematisch oder stilistisch prägend, sie ist jedoch zu einem selbstverständlichen und unverzichtbarem Bestandteil deutscher Gegenwartsliteratur geworden.“</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">Ebenso richtig. Nur ist diese Botschaft nicht in der Gesellschaft angekommen. </span><span lang="DE">Immer noch müssen die Ausgezeichneten den braven Ausländer spielen, immer noch wird ihr Anderssein betont, die sprachliche Bereicherung, die sie einbringen.</span><span lang="DE"> </span><span lang="DE">Nicht so sehr die Bosch-Stiftung sondern Moderatoren und Journalisten stellen immer noch dieselben Fragen, auf die die Ausgezeichneten immer nur dieselben Phrasen geben können: „Ich habe mich in die deutsche Sprache verliebt“, „auf Deutsch schreiben ist für mich befreiend“, „ich musste mir die deutsche Sprache aneignen, um zu überleben...“ Anstatt zuzugeben, dass es schlicht bizarr wäre, auf die besseren Verdienstmöglichkeiten auf dem deutschsprachigen Literaturmarkt zu verzichten, wenn man schon mal seinen Lebensmittelpunkt in Deutschland, Österreich oder der Schweiz hat.&nbsp;</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">„Chamisso-Autoren“ sitzen&nbsp; zusammen auf Podien und sollen übers Ausländersein reden und nicht übers Schreiben. Sind keine Autoren wie alle anderen, sollen keine Geschichten erzählen wie alle anderen, sondern nur Geschichten übers Ausländersein. Haben sprachliche Würze zu sein in der faden deutschen Suppe. Die deutsche Sprache ist in dieser Erzählung der rettende Anker; die deutsche (oder eben österreichische oder schweizerische) Gesellschaft das Mutterschiff. Die Preisträger gehören einer eigenen Kategorie an: einer literarischen Parallelgesellschaft, von der Mehrheit erschaffen. Seit Jahren aber rebellieren Autoren dagegen. 2008 schrieb Preisträger </span><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;">Saša Stanišić</span></strong><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times;"> </span></strong><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;">über</span></strong><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times;"> </span></strong><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;">„<a href="http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/three-myths-of-immigrant-writing-a-view-from-germany"><span>drei Mythen vom Schreiben der Migranten</span></a>“: als philologische Kategorie, mit monothematischen Stoffen und als sprachliche Bereicherung. Mehrere Preisträger und Nichtpreisträger haben sich kritisch geäußert, weigern sich, den „Kanakenbonus“ (Imran Ayata) auszunutzen oder die „Berufsfremde“ (Terézia Mora) zu spielen. Bloß: welch schreibender Mensch lehnt €15,000 Preisgeld ab? Da zeugt die Entscheidung, Autoren nicht mehr für ihren biografischen Hintergrund anzuerkennen von Respekt für ihre Wünsche.&nbsp;</span></strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;">Jörg Sundermeier <a href="http://www.taz.de/!5342481/">schrieb in der taz</a>, ein Preis, der „Deutsch endlich in einer weltoffenen Literatur“ ankommen lässt sei nötiger denn je. Das stimmt sogar, aber kann nicht jeder Literaturpreis, der für alle Deutschschreibende offen ist, genau das erreichen? Ist nicht ein Bachmannpreis, ein Deutscher Buchpreis für Schreibende mit anderen Herkunftssprachen oder ethnischen Hintergründen viel mehr Wert als diese paternalistische Auszeichnung, die das Gespräch in eine einzelne Richtung lenkt? Es liegt an den Verlagen, marginalisierte Autorinnen zu entdecken und zu fördern, sie für Preise einzureichen – denn marginalisiert sind noch viele, und der Weg zum Verlag ist schwer. Es läge an der Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, endlich eine Autorin aus einem anderen Kulturkreis mit dem Büchner-Preis auszuzeichnen. Auswahl gäbe es da – auch dank der Arbeit der Bosch-Stiftung – reichlich. Der Chamisso-Preis in seiner bisherigen Form hat ausgedient.&nbsp;</span></strong></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="DE">Das Gute behält die Bosch-Stiftung konsequenterweise bei: das Programm, bei dem Autoren in Schulen gehen und Kindern zeigen, dass nicht alle deutschsprachige Schriftsteller deutschsprachig auf die Welt kommen. Dadurch werden sie zu Vorbildern und inspirieren womöglich eine neue Generation. </span><strong><span lang="DE" style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;">Ilija Trojanow</span></strong><span lang="DE"> und <strong><span style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;">José F.A. Oliver <a href="http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/kritik-an-bosch-stiftung-ade-chamisso-preis-14443175.html">klagten in der</a></span></strong><a href="http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/kritik-an-bosch-stiftung-ade-chamisso-preis-14443175.html"><strong><span style="font-family: Times;"> </span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: Times; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/kritik-an-bosch-stiftung-ade-chamisso-preis-14443175.html">FAZ</a>, das würde sie auf eine „</span></strong>bildungspolitisch nützliche Rolle“ reduzieren. Aber eben diese wertvolle Arbeit kann der deutschsprachigen Literatur zugute kommen, sie mit Nicht-Arztsöhnen beleben, Kinder von syrischen Flüchtlingen oder englischen Übersetzerinnen beflügeln. Die Bosch-Stiftung könnte auch Eigeninitiativen von marginalisierten Autoren unterstützen; die Zeitschrift <a href="http://freitext.com/2016/09/freitext-reloaded/">Freitext</a> zum Beispiel möchte sich wiederbeleben. Wer Geld zu verteilen hat, wird es nicht schwer haben, Projekte aufzutun. Der Chamisso-Preis schafft sich ab, und das ist gut so – aber wir dürfen auf ihre Weiterexistenz gespannt sein. </span><span lang="DE"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/u5x5a9szxxg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com6http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/09/sie-konnen-aber-gut-deutsch-ade.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-89815847484749309642016-08-02T18:31:00.000+02:002016-08-02T18:31:37.373+02:00Women in Translation: a Podcast<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XQ7Nz7NZOpk/V6DI5zhFG_I/AAAAAAAAAHg/_MWk6CEibF0FvlYQ2BNgBK21T3hI_L4XgCLcB/s1600/Ocelot1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XQ7Nz7NZOpk/V6DI5zhFG_I/AAAAAAAAAHg/_MWk6CEibF0FvlYQ2BNgBK21T3hI_L4XgCLcB/s320/Ocelot1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Welcome to August 2016! I spent yesterday making my way home from the UK after the <a href="http://www.bclt.org.uk/summer-school/">BCLT summer school</a>, an extravaganza of literary translation and creative writing in the holiday-time haven of the University of East Anglia. Aside from leading a group of very talented people working on rendering passages from Rasha Khayat's novel <a href="http://www.dumont-buchverlag.de/buch/khayat-weil-wir-laengst-9783832198145/"><i>Weil wir längst woanders sind</i></a> into English, I also chaired a panel discussion. Three guesses what it was about – women in translation.<br /><br />You can hear me talking to the publishers Laura Barber (Portobello) and Deborah Smith (Tilted Axis) and the publicity, marketing and sales person Nicky Smalley (And Other Stories) in <a href="https://soundcloud.com/bclt/women-in-translation">a podcast</a>. We covered a few topics: what they actually do all day long, the year of publishing women, how they market translations by women, how they find books... and what we can do to change the bizarre imbalance. Enjoy.<br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/pEQimsSWQIc" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com10http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/08/women-in-translation-podcast.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-60590354238300732092016-07-27T11:50:00.000+02:002016-07-27T17:43:20.753+02:00Women in Translation Month 2016: an Introduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-90mgg9ZiF3M/V5iB8u72Y2I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/prXLf3CI77USF5rE7u_a0V5tmDtAhKdvwCLcB/s1600/sometimeshard-poster-348x522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-90mgg9ZiF3M/V5iB8u72Y2I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/prXLf3CI77USF5rE7u_a0V5tmDtAhKdvwCLcB/s320/sometimeshard-poster-348x522.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} </style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Did you know that less than a third of all literary translations published in the UK and the US were originally written by women? Did you know that women writers win far fewer prizes for their translated books than male writers? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Women in Translation Month</b> is all about appreciating the great women writers who do get translated – and of course the people who bring them to us, their translators and publishers. It’s an opportunity to join in a worldwide conversation about outstanding writing from all over the globe. Bookshops and libraries in the UK, US, Germany, France and New Zealand are highlighting translated books by women. Bloggers are sharing their impressions, the twitterati are pulling together under <a href="https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&amp;q=%23WITMonth">#WITMonth</a>, and anyone can be part of it just by reading a book.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">With only 30% of translated fiction being female-authored, it’s a safe bet that those books by women that do get translated are genuinely excellent. Women around the world are writing explicitly feminist fiction like Angélica Gorodischer from Argentina, bringing us family stories like France’s Marie NDiaye, exploring historical issues like Chinese writer Yan Geling or sexuality like Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay from India, or giving us intercultural crime novels like Finland’s Kati Hiekkapelto. Despite their relative rarity in English, translated women offer a wealth of diversity. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So why not join in August’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Women in Translation Month</b>? Simply pick up a book and enjoy it – or you could go a step further and write a review on Amazon or Goodreads, keep an eye out for literary events, hold a WiT-themed reading group, invite friends to present their favourite foreign females at a party, learn a new language and travel the world in search of an undiscovered woman writer to translate, set up a publishing house… the sky’s the limit.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;If you're in Berlin, you could head for <a href="https://www.genialokal.de/buchhandlung/berlin/ocelot/">ocelot</a> on Brunnenstraße. They've put together a fine selection of books written by women and translated into English – and German! Pop by and support your local bookshop and global women writers in one fell swoop.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The picture at the top is part of <a href="http://www.heathermariescholl.com/sometimes-its-hard-to-be-a-woman1/">an artwork by Heather Marie Scholl</a>. If you are Heather Marie Scholl and you read this, thanks for the great work and I hope it's OK to use the picture totally out of context. If not, please let me know.</span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">&nbsp;</span> </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/XpPAcieHc4o" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com27http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/07/women-in-translation-month-2016.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-21501121871312422822016-07-22T10:40:00.000+02:002016-07-23T14:13:18.694+02:00Women in Translation Month: A Useful List<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wn11sAwGBgw/V5HZ9rNTnVI/AAAAAAAAAG0/8MgPwooPSOsJbJl2OiLql52QANvQ0NwXwCLcB/s1600/Girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wn11sAwGBgw/V5HZ9rNTnVI/AAAAAAAAAG0/8MgPwooPSOsJbJl2OiLql52QANvQ0NwXwCLcB/s320/Girls.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />August is Women in Translation Month! #WITMonth! I approached my local independent bookshop and asked if they might like to do a special table, and they said yes! Then they said could I send them a list of suggested titles and they'd see what they could get hold of...<br /><br />So I asked on Facebook and rather a lot of books came together. <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uOekBnCw7_WlO7wUzRTpCxXf7YPiFrgYQfqXiVmx2LQ/edit?usp=sharing">Here's the list for your inspiration</a>. I used a fairly random cut-off date of 2010 publication and I've only given the most basic information – title, author, publisher. It still took all day though, so please just find out any additional stuff you need of your own accord.<br /><br />You could use it to find books you'd like to read or review, to help out your bookseller, to brainwash your friends, whatever. Enjoy!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WEoTTOzjT6k/V5HbvCEwukI/AAAAAAAAAHA/BV2_d1mvnsg5fwRUxGi24MrtoVsb28fdQCLcB/s1600/%2523WITMonth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WEoTTOzjT6k/V5HbvCEwukI/AAAAAAAAAHA/BV2_d1mvnsg5fwRUxGi24MrtoVsb28fdQCLcB/s320/%2523WITMonth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />UPDATE: Susan Bernofsky has kindly put the list in alphabetical order, and as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO2ylwXD9CU">Margie Joseph sang</a>: Like the size of the fish that the man claimed broke his wrist, it's growing. A number of bookshops are joining in, not just Ocelot in Berlin but also Ink84 and Belgravia Books in London and a few more in the pipeline. Watch out for that hashtag!<br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/81cYSNv2G-8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com20http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/07/women-in-translation-month-useful-list.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-16925451450511639012016-07-18T20:04:00.000+02:002016-07-18T20:04:07.445+02:00Empfindlichkeiten: International Queer Lit Festival <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mj8uINziteQ/V40CJo3n-UI/AAAAAAAAAGk/9LZo_Ig1wmkJZR5RcZzSgoiSWDJhk56fQCLcB/s1600/Taia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mj8uINziteQ/V40CJo3n-UI/AAAAAAAAAGk/9LZo_Ig1wmkJZR5RcZzSgoiSWDJhk56fQCLcB/s320/Taia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />I have been to a lot of literary festivals. So many that I've got a bit jaded by it all. This past weekend, though, the <a href="http://www.lcb.de/home/">LCB</a> held its first ever international festival of LGBTIQ writing and I was asked to take part, reading aloud short texts in English as part of the evening events. That's me on the right, next to my fellow reader Lavender Wolf and the Moroccan writer Abdellah Taia behind the lectern. I stole the picture from my friend Bill Martin. I hope he doesn't mind.<br /><br />The best place at the moment to find out what happened is the #Empfindlichkeiten tag at <a href="https://stefanmesch.wordpress.com/tag/empfindlichkeiten/">Stefan Mesch's blog</a>. Stefan was slogging away to document the panel discussions and events, posting interviews with writers and participants, and generally giving a really good impression of the festival. Great work!<br /><br />Basically, what happened was this: the LCB invited a whole lot of queer writers over and asked them to write "statements" about whether there even is such a thing as queer literature or a homosexual writing style, in homage to the German writer Hubert Fichte, who was translated a while back by Martin Chalmers but seems to be pretty much out of print in English by now. I understand those statements will be published somewhere at some point. Then they got lots of other people involved, academics and performers and musicians and artists and puppeteers, and made the whole thing into a two-and-a-half-day festival. The days started with panel discussions, interspersed with performances, followed by readings and then concerts. You could consult an oracle round the back or watch <a href="http://msoke.de/about/">Msoke</a> doing dancehall in the rain, and if you found a quiet moment you could view the exhibition of photos by Leonore Mau. I didn't find a quiet moment but the exhibition is still there.<br /><br />The writers were:<span><span><span data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span><span><span data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span>Abdellah Taia (Mor/F)</span></span><span><span><br /><span>Alain Claude Sulzer (D)</span><br /><span>Angela Steidele (D)</span><br /><span>Antje Rávic Strubel (D)</span><br /><span>Ben Fergusson (GB/D)</span><br /><span>Dmitry Kuzmin (Rus/Latvia)</span><br /><span>Édouard Louis (F)</span><br /><span>Gunther Geltinger (D)</span><br /><span>Hillary McCollum (Ire)</span><br /><span>Izabela Morska (Pol)</span><br /><span>Jayrome C. Robinet (F/D)</span><br /><span>Joachim Helfer (D)</span><br /><span>Kristof Magnusson (D)</span><br /><span>Luisgé Martin (Es)</span><br /><span>Mario Fortunato (It)</span><br /><span>Marlen Pelny (D)</span><br /><span>Masha Gessen (Rus/USA)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><span><span><span data-ft="{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span><span><span>Michał Witkowski (Pol) </span><br /><span>Niviaq Korneliussen (Greenland)</span><br /><span>Perihan Magden (Tur)</span><br /><span>Raziel Reid (Can)</span><br /><span>Ricardo Domeneck (Bra/D)</span><br /><span>Saleem Haddad (Kuw/GB)</span><br /><span>Sami Özbudak (Tur)</span><br /><span>Sookee (D)</span><br /><span>Suzana Tratnik (Slovenia)</span><br /><span>Thomas Meinecke (D)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br />Not everything was sweetness and light – I wasn't the only person who wished such a progressive festival had worked harder towards gender parity, especially as lesbians have traditionally been&nbsp; invisible anyway, and there was tension between literary theorists and practitioners at some points. But all in all, the atmosphere was remarkably supportive and positive – possibly because there was so much talk of love, possibly because there was less competition between international writers than in a purely national group, possibly because these were all writers who are generally "othered" and they have good reason to stick together. Or it could have been the wine. At any rate, the compliments flew thick and fast and the conversations went on into the nights. Things that were visibly different, apart from that, were that a lot of writers brought their partners along, and that there was often a kind of school disco-style split, with girls hanging out with girls and boys hanging out with boys. I flitted between and made a lot of new friends. <br /><br />It was a fascinating experience for me, as a heterosexual cis-gender translator. I am used to being a non-writer among writers, seeing as I'm a rather sociable person who wangles invitations to things, so that was nothing new. But I have rarely been in a public space where I'm the only person who isn't queer and I frequently felt the need to apologize, much to my interlocutors' amusement. Thomas Meinecke kindly explained that he, too, is heterosexual but a big fan of LGBTIQ culture – a fag hag or indeed a fag <i>stag</i>. So that's me, I suppose, a fan-girl for queer writing. <br /><br />Two articles made me think, read in combination with the festival. First of all Hugh Ryan at Slate on <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/07/14/why_jenna_wortham_s_queer_article_misunderstands_the_marginalization_in.html">Why Everyone Can't Be Queer</a>. The piece talks about the word <i>queer</i> as denoting marginalization, a rejection of heteronormativity. Ryan writes, and I know people will disagree:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><em>Queer</em> does stand on the precipice of change, but it is not exactly the one Wortham describes. The queer movement of the early 1970s—which demanded a wholesale revolution against the patriarchy and all sexual norms—has given way to an LGBTQ movement that asks for equal rights. This is a more achievable set of goals, and legal equality is of course a good thing. But formal equality inside a hierarchical system that still privileges monogamy, marriage, the child-rearing couple, etc., is inherently anti-queer.</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Gains in legal recognition don’t mean <em>queer</em> is going to disappear anytime soon, however. Marginalization is a byproduct of many things, not just legal exclusion, and not everyone granted those rights will rush to take them up uncritically. But all doors go two ways, and as we reach for equality, heteronormativity reaches back for us. Societal pressure is a powerful force, and the more we assert our rights to get married and have children (for instance), the more we will be judged and informally penalized for <em>not</em> doing those things. What was once banned will now nearly be required.</blockquote>This is important to me because I happen to be leading my life outside of society's most conservative expectations, at least at the moment. I have a child but I've never married and don't intend to and I am no longer with the child's father, I live alone with my child (half of the time) and I don't expect that to change soon. I have to earn decent money because I finance a family-sized home on a single income. I'm not going to write about my love life but it's not like many of my friends' in my age group. And as such, I see queer people as allies in a nebulous and mostly involuntary struggle against conservative expectations of how to live. <br /><br />The second piece ties in with that basic idea I have of being <i>allied</i> with queer people. It's Natalie Kon-yu at lithub, writing about that old but still tasty chestnut, <a href="http://lithub.com/on-sexism-in-literary-prize-culture/">Sexism in Literary Prize Culture</a>. She tells us:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Given their exclusion from the canon, it is no surprise that women, writers of color, working-class writers and non-heterosexual or non-cis writers do not win prestigious prizes as often as they should (...).&nbsp; </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">Yet it is difficult to say what makes a book masculine and even harder to categorize what masculine writing actually <em>is</em>. In any given library catalogue there are hundreds of books and articles with titles that mention “women” and “writing,” or “women’s writing,” but none that feature the phrase “men’s writing.” Bookshop visits will reveal shelves titled “chick lit,” but none called “dick lit” or, as Linda Z, a book editor turned agent, puts it, a “white-guy shelf.” </blockquote>I'm not sure, especially after hearing the wide range of work at the festival, whether there is such a thing as queer writing style, although of course there are queer themes just as there are subjects women write about more often than men, like motherhood. At Empfindlichkeiten, Antje Rávic Strubel talked about not wanting to be put on one particular shelf, not on the women's shelf when she's an East German writer, not on the East German shelf when she's a lesbian writer, not on the translations shelf (I might add) when she's a woman writer. Does she need a whole bookshop to herself? Very possibly – she's certainly an outstandingly writer. But Kon-yu's piece made me think that if the white-guy shelf is the norm –&nbsp; a heterosexual middle-class cis-gender non-translated white-guy shelf – many or indeed most of the writers I love are not on it. Can all of us who are considered "other" be allies? Can we have one white-guy shelf and claim the rest of the bookshop for our marginalized selves? <br /><br />Certainly the Empfindlichkeiten festival made me feel that might be possible. I dearly hope they'll do it again and create a lasting and accessible document of what went on, showcasing some great writers and fascinating discussions. The festival ended for me with a tipsy conversation about writers to invite to an anti-sensitivities festival, <i>die Unempfindlichen, </i>the unreconstructed machos and reactionaries of German-language literature. In retrospect, most of them would go on the white-guy shelf. &nbsp; <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/Bue7NBLy2xk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com4http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/07/empfindlichkeiten-international-queer.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-75662947729190955612016-06-07T14:09:00.002+02:002016-06-07T14:09:50.186+02:00Updated Stats on Women Published in GermanHello there. I've combed through the autumn catalogues to add to my ongoing stats on original German fiction by gender. <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BcooCuHvVCJdeVaxDNIiBn6cfGwuwUgIiBB_PXuSnQ8/edit#gid=0">Here's the table</a>. I counted first-time hardcover publications written in German, classified by the publishers as "Belletristik", so broadly fiction, essays, poetry. There are 33 publishing houses in the count. <br /><br />Some publishers are doing really well, publishing equal numbers of make and female (identifying) writers – dtv, DuMont, KiWi, Klett Cotta/Tropen. And some are even bringing out more books by women than by men this autumn: Aufbau, btb, CH Beck, List, Ullstein, Rütten &amp; Loening and notably Matthes &amp; Seitz, with three ladies in their German fiction/Naturkunden catalogue and only one dude.<br /><br />Everyone else – not so much. There are twenty publishers publishing more men than women and eight houses not bringing us a single female German fiction writer this coming season. All in all, only 37% of original German fiction covered by my count was written by women. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/XiZqeOhj4PQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com3http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/06/updated-stats-on-women-published-in.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-78533558835677378792016-04-06T12:09:00.001+02:002016-04-06T12:09:04.640+02:00All The Complaining in One PlaceI've written several different articles on the subject of the lack of women in English translation recently. Here are all the links in one place, in order of writing:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.new-books-in-german.com/english/2098/453/453/129002/design1.html">Women in Translation: Not Just Bearded Dudes for Bearded Dudes</a> at New Books in German<br /><br /><a href="https://www.freewordcentre.com/blog/2016/02/k-derbyshire/">Women in Translation: Why Does It Matter?</a> at Free Word Centre<br /><br /><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/mar/10/translated-fiction-by-women-must-stop-being-a-minority-in-a-minority">Translated fiction by women must stop being a minority in a minority</a> at The Guardian<br /><br /><a href="http://www.zeit.de/kultur/2016-04/schriftstellerinnen-literaturbetrieb-frauenquote-10-nach-8">Der Literaturbetrieb hat ein Problem mit Frauen</a> at Zeit Online<br /><br />If you'll be at the London Book Fair, we're having an informal meetup to think about how to improve the situation. All welcome: Thursday, 3:30 pm at the English PEN salon. I hope we can now talk some positive talk.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/hZd-gIPiOMk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com7http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/all-complaining-in-one-place.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-85044857186281996092016-01-25T18:30:00.002+01:002016-01-25T19:44:02.670+01:00Clemens Meyer Reference WorksI'm on the home straight for my translation of Clemen's Meyer's <i>Im Stein</i> – although we don't have an English title yet. So I thought I'd share my extracurricular reading and reference works for the novel. In order of decreasing naivety.<br /><br /><i><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-dictionary-of-nursery-rhymes-9780198600886?cc=de&amp;lang=en&amp;">The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes</a></i><br /><br /><i><a href="http://www.booklooker.de/B%FCcher/Let-s-sing-together/id/A01H2nqB01ZZ1">Let's Sing Together&nbsp;</a></i><br /><br /><i>The Penguin Rhyming Dictionary</i><br /><br /><i><a href="http://www.vdpolizei.de/shop/Fremdsprachen-fuer-die-Polizei/It-s-all-part-of-the-job-Englisch-Woerterbuch-oxid.html">It's all part of the jo</a></i><i><a href="http://www.vdpolizei.de/shop/Fremdsprachen-fuer-die-Polizei/It-s-all-part-of-the-job-Englisch-Woerterbuch-oxid.html">b. Deutsch für die Polizei</a></i><br /><br /><i><a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0631180826.html">A Dictionary of Marxist Thought </a></i><br /><i><br /></i><br />Karl Marx: <i>Capital</i><br /><br />Alfred Döblin: <i>Berlin Alexanderplatz</i><br /><br /><i></i><br />Bobby Cummines: <i>I Am Not a Gangster - Fixer. Armed robber. Hitman. OBE</i><br /><br />William T. Vollmann: <i>Whores for Gloria</i><br /><br />Rachel Aimee, Eliyanna Kaiser, Audacia Ray (eds.): <i>$pread. The best of the magazine that illuminated the sex industry and started a media revolution</i><br /><br />Wolfgang Hilbig, <i>I</i> (trans. Isabel Cole)<br /><br />David Peace: <i>Tokyo Year Zero</i><br /><br />Skip the Games: <a href="http://skipthegames.com/articles/about-escorts/escort-terms-escort-sex-definitions-escort-abbreviations#ASP">Escort terms, sex definitions and abbreviations in escort ads</a><br /><br />I might have forgotten some. <br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/7CZesqp2mhI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com14http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/clemens-meyer-reference-works.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-23944744780866479402016-01-16T13:10:00.000+01:002016-01-16T13:14:46.045+01:00My Feelings about My Writers and Your Feelings about David BowieI had been puzzled by how strongly people feel about David Bowie's death – the street renamings, the pilgrimages and flowers, the deep sadness, the need to share the tiny encounters or the life-changing effects of particular songs or Top of the Pops appearances. I have a different feeling about death to many people anyway, as a fourth-generation atheist, and have struggled to understand people's reactions in the past. A lot of them felt to me as though people thought the dead person was looking down at them and checking they were behaving suitably. Maybe they did think that, I don't know. When you've never entertained the idea of an afterlife that's hard to relate to. But I have at least learned something about the comforting power of ritual and sharing of grief.<br /><br />So I had been idly reading various people's responses and it began to dawn on me that I had in fact felt something similar to that one-way devotion to someone who is unaware of your existence. And that's the feeling I have about my writers. I spend months or years mentally immersed in their creative work in a similar way to that time spent listening to favourite songs, poring over lyrics, interpreting their meaning, internalizing the rhythm, singing along at the top of your voice, imagining the song is all about you. Such a joyful teenagerly activity, best performed on a single bed with headphones and spots. I know you don't have to be a teenager to do it; here's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFEvZ0AErys">the last song that did that to me</a>.<br /><br />And that's very like what happens to me when I'm translating a novel. It's a work of art that's been created entirely independently of me and even if I know the writer personally, which I usually do but not always, I will always know far more about their work than they do about mine. I will always think I know them far better than they know me – and yes, I know that's wrong thinking. But it's still a joyful activity, wallowing in the writing to create my literary cover versions. Sometimes translators do get romantically involved with their writers. I don't know about that really; it's always a secret yearning, I think, but could it ever be a balanced relationship? <br /><br />None of my writers has died since I started working on them. It will be devastating, I expect. So now I understand the David Bowie sadness better. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/EZ2HQ-BM5uU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com6http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/my-feelings-about-my-writers-and-your.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-49427801395914680842016-01-07T18:01:00.001+01:002016-01-07T18:02:30.675+01:00Happy New StatsHappy 2016! I was in a less-than-creative mood anyway so I did some counting. I'm working on an article on gender imbalance in translated fiction for <i>New Books in German</i>. And I'd found it impossible to find any statistics on books published in German in the first place. So I combed a selection of publishers' catalogues from Spring 2016 and Fall 2015. For the purpose of comparison with other stats, I've included only fiction (novels, novellas, short story collections but no poetry, drama, essays or children's books) written in German and published for the first time. The publishers are thirty literary, genre, indie, major group-linked, small, large, medium houses – but of course this is by no means a comprehensive list. Anyway, <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BcooCuHvVCJdeVaxDNIiBn6cfGwuwUgIiBB_PXuSnQ8/edit">here it is</a>. <br /><br />You'll notice the numbers are surprisingly low. Only 128 original German-language titles published in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in Spring 16, 144 in Fall 2015. Obviously that's because I haven't made any attempt to cover all publishers. But it's also because a lot of translations come out, especially fiction. In Germany in 2013, 11,894 published first editions fell under "German literature" and 6,164 literary translations were published, according to <i>Buch und Buchhandel in Zahlen 2014</i>.<br /><br />Adding the two seasons together, books authored by women made up <b>43%</b> of original fiction in my selection.<br /><br />Going by a <a href="http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.de/2015/04/some-more-statistics-on-translated.html">previous count of mine</a>, about <b>30%</b> of fiction translated from German to English was written by women. So something does seem to be getting lost along the way. <br /><br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/kEY8uClLecM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com5http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/happy-new-stats.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-84835329067301044062015-11-18T10:50:00.001+01:002015-11-18T10:50:33.198+01:00Last no man's land EventThe online magazine <a href="http://www.no-mans-land.org/">no man's land</a> has been going for ten years now. It started as a side shoot to the Berlin literary magazine and writing lab <a href="http://www.lauter-niemand.de/">lauter niemand</a>, with the first issue basically showcasing young German-language writers picked by the team and translated into English. It launched with a bang – my friend Isabel Cole, editor-in-chief throughout, got funding for a print issue, a translation workshop and two readings. I translated one of the texts and attended the events and I remember being very impressed by the whole thing. Since then the magazine has gone online-only (international distribution was too complicated) and relied on submissions of contemporary German poetry and prose from translators. I've been co-editing on the prose side since 2009, alongside (variously) Liesel Tarquini, Alistair Noon and Catherine Hales.<br /><br />In the meantime, Isabel, Steph Morris and I set up the no man's land translation lab, which is still going strong. It's not rocket science – we meet once a month in a room above a pub and workshop each others' translations – but it has helped forge a very strong literary translation community in Berlin and beyond. I can say it has prompted me to think about and articulate my work in a very clear way and has definitely made me a better translator. Our next lab is on 1 December at 8 p.m., as always in the "library" upstairs at Max &amp; Moritz on Oranienstraße. The format has been adopted by translators in other cities, including Dublin and London. It costs next to nothing and makes me happy.<br /><br />This Sunday we launch the final issue of no man's land. It will be a bumper issue with some killer pieces by German-language prose writers and poets, plus our first and obviously last literary essay. We also offered the translators a chance to share something about the translation process, which I'm very glad worked out. Ten years feels like a good point to stop and I think we're all proud of the body of work we've accumulated on the website. There are now so many more opportunities for publishing translations than there were ten years ago that we decided it would do no harm for us to stop.<br /><br />So we're having a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/152947411725918/">party</a> on Sunday. There will be readings from issue #10 and then there will be dancing, with Steph Morris and myself reactivating our old DJ persona Lang 'n' Scheidt (he's very tall; I'm not very good). Retro translator-mafia music, all vinyl, for dancing to. Please come along to <a href="http://acudmachtneu.de/">ACUD</a> to help us go out with a bang as big as the one we came in with. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/eovVAZZxMqI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com6http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2015/11/last-no-mans-land-event.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-56236982988937316252015-11-09T09:57:00.001+01:002015-11-09T09:57:21.442+01:00Swiss Book Prize to Monique SchwitterThe <a href="http://www.schweizerbuchpreis.ch/">Schweizer Buchpreis</a> – which goes to German-language books only – has been awarded to Monique Schwitter for her novel <a href="http://www.droschl.com/programm/buch.php?book_id=796"><i>Eins im Anderen</i></a>. I'm pleased because <a href="http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.de/2015/09/monique-schwitter-eins-im-anderen.html">I really enjoyed it</a>. And the judges called it "powerful, humorous and thoughtful". Hooray!<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/lNs6-uwEwO0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com5http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2015/11/swiss-book-prize-to-monique-schwitter.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-67576679835883568952015-11-01T22:36:00.000+01:002015-11-01T22:36:13.405+01:00Angela Steidele: Rosenstengel <style><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; panose-1:0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0; mso-font-charset:128; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:fixed; mso-font-signature:1 134676480 16 0 131072 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1073743103 0 0 415 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page WordSection1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt; mso-header-margin:35.4pt; mso-footer-margin:35.4pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} --></style> <br /><div class="MsoNormal">A novel entangling two stories of homosexual love between real-life historical figures! King Ludwig II of Bavaria and a young doctor charged with looking after his brother Otto at a mental asylum, and Catharina Linck, a.k.a. Anastasius Rosenstengel, and a young woman from 18th-century Halberstadt. Related in letters allegedly found in an archival file that hadn’t been opened since before the war…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">This is Angela Steidele’s first novel; an early and unfinished version was nominated for the prestigious Döblin Prize, which is where I first came across it. On Thursday the writer presented the book at the same site, the Literary Colloquium Berlin, and recalled watching a Champions League match afterwards with her wife and Günter Grass. It may have been a true story, or it might even be another convincing fabrication along the lines of <a href="http://www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/rosenstengel.html"><i>Rosenstengel</i></a>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">As it happens, Dr Franz Carl Müller was the person who pulled Ludwig’s corpse out of Lake Starnberg after the king was certified insane, and he also researched court records on Linck for a study on the history of homosexuality. Ludwig is known to have had “<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">a succession of close friendships with men” and Steidele uses some of his delightfully florid formulations from genuine letters in her imaginary royal missives to Müller. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">A hundred and seventy-one years before Ludwig’s death, Catharina Linck was also drowned, in her case as a penalty for “sodomy”. She was raised in a Pietist orphanage, ran away, donned men’s clothing, joined the army and would have been hanged for desertion if she hadn’t revealed herself to be a woman. Under the assumed name of Rosenstengel, she had previously been a wandering prophet and later married a woman, converted to Catholicism and back to Protestantism, and was then shopped by her wife’s distrustful mother, who refused to believe her son-in-law was a man. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">So the story is, Müller has collected letters concerning Rosenstengel and they’ve got muddled up with the letters he’s collected concerning Ludwig, including their private correspondence. So what we get is a blow-by-blow description (actually all pretty much safe for work) of the two romances and the surrounding political intrigues. All written in the language of the respective time in the voices of historical figures, which seems to have been a real labour of love. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">At times it’s gruesome, particularly the details of nineteenth-century “treatments” for various issues considered illnesses at the time, including homosexuality. The early eighteenth century may still leave the mentally instable in comparative peace, but the accepted views on women are equally terrifying. All this is historically accurate, culled from writing of the time by the figures themselves and others. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">It’s also funny. The characters really shine through, my favourite being a radical Pietist by the name of Dorothea Rosina Pott, based on a woman in Halberstadt alleged to have had contact with Linck. Pott is partial to a special herb mixture that keeps her awake longer for extra praying, and loves a good gossip and a spot of one-up-womanship with her correspondent. We also get a few amusing anecdotes (and original poems) from fag-hag extraordinaire Queen Sisi of Austria and a lot of contradicting versions of various events, related as they are by unreliable and untrustworthy witnesses with their own agendas. Plus, apparently, well-placed anachronisms to titillate the well-read reader (I didn’t spot them). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">That humour gave me pause; it felt at certain points like it went too far, making the characters appear ridiculous. Part of the joke is that we see things the letter-writers simply don't get, out of naivety, bigotry or ignorance. It’s almost a cliché of creative writing teaching that fiction writers ought to be kind to their characters. And this is fiction, in its own way. Yet I imagine it must be hard to be kind to a character like Paul Julius Westphal, for example, a composite of two doctors. Prof. Carl Westphal, as we learn in the biographies at the back of the book, was the first to define homosexuality as a sickness and died of the after-effects of syphilis, and Dr Paul Julius Möbius “proved” women’s inferiority in numerous books and papers. Perhaps – if we even accept that there should be rules for writers, which is probably not a good idea anyway – we can make an exception here. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Whatever the case, Rosenstengel is a playful piece of literary fiction exploring two pretty fabulous stories. The cover is a delight in high-camp pink and gold and the physical book as a whole – maps, two-colour printing, index of persons – makes the experience even more fun. Those used to British writing might find it a harder prospect than, say, Jeanette Winterson or Sarah Waters' stories of historical gender and sexual issues. The eighteenth-century German in particular took me a while to get into, but once the code was cracked reading went smoothly enough. Translating it, though? That would take a specialist. </div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/1__dAiLhWa8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com5http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2015/11/angela-steidele-rosenstengel.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-69637873253444760652015-10-17T13:53:00.000+02:002015-10-17T13:53:12.130+02:00On Amazon, and Translation, and Heike GeißlerThis week <a href="http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&amp;node=11585009011">AmazonCrossing</a> – the translation publishing section of the online retailer – announced that it would be investing ten million dollars in publishing translations over the coming five years, and that it now has a submissions form for people to suggest foreign-language titles for consideration. Reactions from translators have been cautiously optimistic to neutral; you can read a few in <a href="http://qz.com/523964/a-major-expansion-of-amazons-translation-program-will-bring-a-lot-more-of-the-worlds-literature-to-english-readers/">Thu-Huong Ha's piece at Quartz</a>. <br /><br />I think most of us agree that AmazonCrossing is doing a good thing by bringing genre fiction and eminently readable literature into English, breaking down the irrational fear of translations among the reading public. This move will make it even more of a dominant force in the translation publishing world. And that, I think, is what I find troubling.<br /><br />I've spoken to a number of early-career translators who are working with Amazon. It seems to be a good way to get experience or to supplement more difficult translation projects that take more time. What I'm not aware of is translators who have made the leap – should they want to – from translating entirely for Amazon to translating for other publishers. <br /><br />I translated two children's books for AmazonCrossing, back when they launched five years ago. I can't remember exactly what was covered by the infamous non-disclosure agreement but I've forgotten how much they paid anyway; signing it was, however, an intimidating experience. The commissioning and editing process was fine, no more friction with the outsourced editing and copy-editing than usual. The people I dealt with were perfectly nice and in some cases seemed genuinely interested in international literature. That was before they introduced the bidding system, though, under which translators say how much money they'd like and how much time they'd need to translate a particular book, send a short sample, and then someone picks one of them for the job. I strongly believe this is not the best way to find the right translator for a book. Nor do I recommend translators submit suggestions for books to be translated, as I presume that these titles, if picked up, would then have to go through the bidding process. Meaning one translator puts a lot of effort into getting a book she loves published and another one may well undercut her for the actual job. That happens elsewhere, of course, too.<br /><br />I still get royalty statements for my two books, which are now sent anonymously (I'm not exactly getting rich on them, and they've since scrapped their line in translated children's books). I can't be sure because that non-disclosure agreement means it's all conjecture – according to that Quartz article, Amazon are considering doing without the NDA – but I believe they pay lower up-front fees than other publishers, coupled with higher royalties. Which probably worked out great for Lee Chadeayne, translator of mega-selling Oliver Pötzsch, but in my case shifted much of the risk from a multinational online retailer (albeit one apparently <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/07/amazon-web-services-earnings/">only just making a profit</a>) to a single parent only just making the rent (plus shoes, etc.). Obviously that was my choice, as it is every translator's choice to work with a particular publisher, provided they'll take them. But let's just say I'm not going to do it again.<br /><br />If I'm to venture into the realm of conspiracy theory, might I suggest that Amazon doesn't actually want to make a profit, at least on paper? And publishing translations, while being an idealistic venture that brings light into a lot of people's lives, is an expensive thing to do. A ten-million-dollar investment means ten million less on the books. Is that very cynical of me?<br /><br />The main thing that makes AmazonCrossing not my ideal client, however, is the sheer size of the enterprise. As Alex Zucker points out in that Quartz piece (again), the new investment could add up to 833 book translations over five years. That's a lot of work to be managed. I assume the scale of the program is already the reason behind the bidding process, and the reason why the emails I now receive seem to have been sent by a robot. Remember that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0"><i>New York Times</i> article about working conditions</a> at head office? Now imagine you have to get 833 translations commissioned, edited and published in that place. Even a hundred a year, which they're already heading for, is a mammoth task that can only really be dealt with using a kind of conveyor-belt method. When I read about one individual translating thirteen titles in eighteen months (eight of them in a two-person team) – in the comments to my friend <a href="http://www.transfiction.eu/2013/04/29/words-are-what-matter/">Lucy Renner-Jones's excellent piece from 2013</a> – I can't help but feel that quality is not the top priority here.<br /><br />Amazon has proved very effective at using algorithms to sell things and streamlining processes to sell those things cheaply. I just don't think that algorithms and streamlining are best applied to literature or translations, or human beings in general.<br /><br />Why am I writing all this? Because my translation of the first chapter of Heike Geißler's <i>Saisonarbeit</i> (Season's Greetings from Fulfillment) is <a href="https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-interview/">up at n+1 today</a>! Heike got a job at the Amazon warehouse in Leipzig, not as an undercover journalist but as a struggling writer who needed to pay off her overdraft. And then she wrote a book-length essay on how horrible it is that we have to perform paid labour at all, but especially how awful it is to perform paid labour at the Amazon warehouse in Leipzig, and how the company attempts to squeeze the humanity out of its employees and some of them even start identifying with it. There'll be another chapter up there soon so you can get even more of a taste of it. And/or <a href="http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.de/2014/12/heike-geiler-saisonarbeit.html">read my review</a>. So I figured Heike and I probably don't have a lot to lose on the Amazon front any more. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/A8DZRBDYQA8" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com5http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2015/10/on-amazon-and-translation-and-heike.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-30533225079014781102015-10-15T16:11:00.000+02:002015-10-15T16:11:25.888+02:00Something Else I Can't Be Arsed with: Charlotte Roche: Ein Mädchen für AllesCharlotte Roche, author of <i>Wetlands</i> and <i>Wrecked</i> (both tr. Tim Mohr), has a new book out.<i> <a href="http://www.piper.de/buecher/maedchen-fuer-alles-isbn-978-3-492-05499-7">Mädchen für Alles</a></i> (All-Round Girl) – it's about a frustrated woman, disturbed by her parents' divorce when she was a child, who seeks release through unconventional sex acts. In this case, a mother who gets it on with the babysitter.<br /><br />I just thought I'd tell you, so you know. I don't want to read it. I read the first chapter via the link above, and I disliked the narrator and the style and the setting and the cynicism and the apparent misogyny posing as honesty (or perhaps it's just misanthropy posing as honesty). And I thought about writing a searing critique but then I'd really have to read it, and it might come out as misogyny (or misanthropy). And it felt like a rather easy target, because Charlotte Roche used to be famous for being a television presenter on yoof tv and now she's famous for writing scandalous novels about... see above. So I'm just going to say, hey, whatever pays the rent, Charlotte. Go for it.<br /><br /><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/rNCgVO4xqNw" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com2http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2015/10/something-else-i-cant-be-arsed-with.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5305631555616445080.post-53543042216336054602015-10-14T09:35:00.000+02:002015-10-14T09:35:51.403+02:00Not at the Book FairI am not at the book fair. No, I can't meet you for a drink. Well yes, I was invited to that party but obviously I'm not going. No, we can't sit down and talk German books. I haven't gone because I was away in New York for ten days recently and I need to get work done. And then having decided that, I said my dad was very welcome to come and visit, so I can't possibly go now. Which is, incidentally, the answer to that suggestion that I just "pop down for the day" (not that an eight-hour round trip to Frankfurt doesn't sound enticing).<br /><br />And I thought I'd be rather sad about it. I thought I'd be upset by all the Facebook postings of booths being built and torrid tweets from the Frankfurter Hof. I expected envy, my constant companion, to blow itself up to the size of the marshmallow monster at the end of <i>Ghostbusters</i>. But so far, I'm feeling quite calm about the whole thing. Envy is normal marshmallow size.<br /><br />I do love book fairs, you see. I do love the very first day of striding around and smiling at vague acquaintances, or frowning at leery guys who think they're God's gift to publishing. I love picking up display copies and stroking the covers, noting things down in my special book fair notebook. I love talking to three people at once and then getting tapped on the shoulder by a fourth person I haven't seen since last year and getting all tangled up in between languages. I even love the slightly naff parties – although I hate the horrible Hof, and have vowed never to go there again because it puts me in an instant evil mood. <br /><br />I think I may be becoming a calmer person. I actually forgot about the German Book Prize all day on Monday. In previous years I'd have been glued to the livestream, no kidding. This year I was cooking for my family at 7 o'clock and then we listened to music and watched some old Muppets episodes and then I checked Twitter before I went to bed and, oh boy, they went and awarded the prize while I wasn't looking!<br /><br />You might have noticed I've calmed down with the blogging. It's partly because Twitter is simply a better venue for posting short things, news items and what have you. Another reason is that I've written about many things before, so the eighth repeat of "why I am excited about xyz" doesn't even interest me that much, let alone anyone else, presumably. Plus there are now lots of book bloggers focusing on German books, so I feel they've probably got things covered and I can relax. But to be honest, the main reason is that I just don't feel such a sense of urgency any more. Probably, people aren't drumming their fingers on the table, waiting for me to post about the winner of the German Book Prize before they can possibly go to sleep.<br /><br />I was just thinking of writing that I haven't got any new hobbies or anything. That's not strictly true, though, because I am doing more moderating, which means I have to read certain books that don't necessarily fit here. But if I were to write a dating profile for myself it would still say "books, books, books".<br /><br />Anyway, bear with me during this calm period. I might get all excitable and start posting every day again, or I might not. I'm fine. Just not at the book fair. <img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/LoveGermanBooks/~4/OpPh2spEOSA" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>kjdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16236984779717127341noreply@blogger.com5http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2015/10/not-at-book-fair.html